Subgroups!

Subgroups, people either love 'em or hate 'em. I looked at Tiger Force once, with a peice about gook killing and rape and rap music and all the other things Joe fans seem to equate with my people. But today we're looking at some of the other ones.

Python Patrol: Damn, Copperhead v1 is an ugly figure, what with the greens, the wifebeater, the womens underwear worn above his pants, so let's paint him yellow, black and some ugly shade of greenish brown. He came with a wicked gun though.

Crimson Guard: ˆcrimsonˆisn't an important part of the name at all. But if you have those ninja shadow crimson attack infiltration tigerforce, imperial Guards from that TRU 6 pack, you could swap some heads and have an awesome figure.

The Trooper and the Officer: Well, the molds weren't tired and boring in 1989

Tele-Viper: Hey, I should leave this one for Dr. Henry E. Miller, if he ever gets out of prison

Eventually they released more Python figures, which was kinda cool, I mean we got the Pedo-Viper, the team of Lazer and HEAT Vipers, hot pink SAW VIPER and Major Bludd, stealing Copperhead's spotlight. Oh and Lampreys, I mean boat drivers gotta be stealth to the radar too. The boats not so much.

Slaughters Marauders: Ugly ass figures, that break when you put stuff in their hands! This is quite possibly the worst sub group ever, zany bright blue camo, terrible characters such as Barbeque, and the rest have awkward missing details like Footloose's watch or Spirit's eyebrows, y'know that stuff that doesn't make your figure look like it's got skin diseases or starring roles in community theatre reenditions of The Hills Have Eyes.

Man, Barbecue's figure is peculiar, he's got the most decent looking "HAY DUDES LET'S WEAR UNIFORMS THAT HAVE RANDOM COLOR CHANGES EVERY SECTION OF OUR BODY" as they aren't slanted like Spirit's or seem so completely forced like the others. But Mr. Gabriel's head is bright fucking blue. And so is his shoulder armour so your desire to have a non orange and non blue Barbeque can't happen

Sgt Slaughter is on his fourth version at this point too. Man that's more bizarre than Tripwire getting three releases in the 80s. Here he looks like he hangs out with the Dreadnoks what with the blue tanktop and rape whistle. And shit he had terrible accesories, a baton and nothing else, not even the removeable hat from the 1988 version

Sky Patrol: So you've got a dude who looks like he's straight outta House Party 2, a guy who stole his name, a guy who stole the "Indian guy who jumps outta airplanes" gimmick who also happens to be "the Sgt. Major of the Army" a generic guy, and another generic guy who happens to lead the group despite being in a squad with "THE SGT MAJOR OF THE ARMY". I ain't a stickler for military realisim because I'm not some dude in the army who has to remind you that he's in the army and knows more about kids toys than you, but the rankings there are a little out of whack.

The figures are actually pretty decent but don't have much personality, except for Static Line that cat's got an amazing haircut, which wasn't totally dated at the time, apparently he looks at the floor and finds money, man what a cool guy.

Eco Warriors from 1991: By this point subgroups were both Joe and Cobra, so you got lopsided fights instead of 3 to 1 subgroup fights. That's progress for you.

Flint Radical a new Flint, except he's wearing and green suit and has pink stains on him. Weak. But hey he doesn't look like an asshole with the incredibly lopsided beret. Really could have used a shotgun.

Clean Sweep: Good god this guy looks more like a sexual predator than Torpedo, what the fuck convinced them to make such an ugly guy. He coulda used a molded on helmet. the brown ECO WARRIOR BATTLE DAMAGE STAIN POLLUTION stuff is really fitting.

Ozone: What's with the 70's lumberjack facial hair dude, soon goes to space.

Cesspool: Y'know an evil corporate polluter probably isn't gonna get targeted by an Anti Terrorist Group, it's more like a Terrorist organization to attack the corporations, but I'm pretty sure Cobra was some wacky convoluted metaphor for the communists.

Sludge Viper: This guy was pretty gnarly except for the yellow and turqoise coloring.

Toxo Viper: This guy was pretty gnarly except for the purple and green coloring, also not in a leaky suit.

That's most of the subgroups that people like or hate or whatever, I've come to the conclusion that subgroups are the Warren Zevon to the main line's Jackson Browne. Goofier, occasionally better, less liked by regular people and more likely to be about raping and killing teenager girls

I don't care that you're only 13, 13 is my lucky number

Recently I was looking at G.I. Joe action figures, and noticed "Good christ, Torpedo looks kinda like Brian Peppers wearing a scuba mask" this I found hilarious, and then I remembered Joe fans gave Torpedo the nickname of "pedo". Pedo is short for pedophile, so I got a kick out of a guy who's nickname is synonomus with driving in a van, growing mustaches, and having sex with children, looking a lot like a sexual predator.






thanx too google image search for the rockin' Brian Peppers on velvet image.